“A mythical bird that never dies, the phoenix flies far ahead to the front, always scanning the landscape and distant space. It represents our capacity
for vision, for collecting sensory information about our environment and
the events unfolding within it. The phoenix, with its great beauty, creates
intense excitement and deathless inspiration.”
—Feng shui master Lam Kam Chuen, The Feng Shui Handbook

BEHIND THE COVER:
Enjoying satire at Washington Square Park in New York City, as others
enjoy the sunshine. “We didn’t notice until later how serendipitous this
shot was, that the man was also reading and the woman in the water was
wearing pink, just as Catherine Deneuve is on the cover of Charlie Hebdo.
The Freedom Tower in the background is a symbol of resilience, a character of the magazine’s survivors,” says photographer Michelle Zapata.

A former reporter focused on my corporate communications career for some 15 years, I’ve considered the need to write outside the office as an existential need for some time now. In the spring of
2014 I launched the Creativity Is Contagious blog, a tribute to Albert Einstein who said, “Creativity
is contagious. Pass it on.” In that spirit, I have interviewed tech entrepreneurs, global CEOs and
artists on their creative process, motivations and innovation.
When two brothers claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda murdered 11 journalists at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, I stopped in my tracks. Every day for seven days
(hebdomadaire means weekly), I wrote a music-inspired blog post in honor of the magazine’s journalists, their loved ones and everyone around the world who stands up for free speech.
Creativity Is Risky: Free Speech in a Charlie Hebdo World evolved from that blog series. This multimedia magazine is designed as an interactive play between writer and audience and presented as
a tribute to freedom of expression.

“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.”
-Albert Einstein

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS
What’s On Your Mind? Your Right to Say It
Fatiah, Muhammad and Me
To Award or Not to Award: Satire at the Heart of the Free Speech Debate
About Jokes and Who Gets Them: From Medieval France to Jon Stewart
--Renée Kingcaid, professor of French, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind.
Coming Back to Haunt You: The Writer’s Dilemma
A Boy’s Life. Cartoons and Bullets
A British Citizen Embraces French Laïcité
France’s Charb Amendment: Tax Breaks to Protect Press Freedoms
Picking Up the Pen: Charlie Hebdo Cartoonist Luz Lives to Draw Again
Sending a Message: One Artist’s Way
Epilogue
Jim Ylisela, Chicago investigative journalist and author of:
Who Killed the Candy Lady?: Unwrapping the Unsolved Murder of Helen Brach
*All articles in this magazine are written by Sally O’Dowd except for the two pieces
written by special contributors Renée Kingcaid and Jim Ylisela.

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5

WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S
ON
YOUR
MIND?
Your Right To Say It

6

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On January 7, 2015, two brothers killed 11 journalists and injured 11 others at French satirical magazine
Charlie Hebdo (Weekly Charlie) because of its cartoons
depicting Muhammad and other Islamic figures.
They also killed a Paris police officer outside the offices
at 10, Rue Nicolas-Appert. The gunmen, later killed, identified themselves as belonging to the Yemen branch of
terror group Al Qaeda. Several related attacks took place
within the next two days. In all, 17 people were killed and
22 wounded.

In the wake of murders at the magazine, New York-based
French cartoonist Emmanuel Letouzé, whose pen name
is Manu, published a comic strip to express his grief
on Medium.com, later republished on French website
lareprise.fr, launched by scholar and immigration
specialist Patrick Weil.
They Murdered My Idols tells the story of his love of
cartooning and his admiration for Charlie Hebdo.
“Cabu was a giant. Perhaps the greatest French
cartoonist ever,” he wrote, referring to Jean Cabut, 76,
Charlie Hebdo’s lead cartoonist. “And he got killed with
an AK-47 for this.” Cabu had been honored with the
Légion d’honneur, France’s highest civil decoration,
in 2005.
Like Manu, people all over the world reacted to the
violence with a mix of incomprehension and grief.
Charlie Hebdo’s survivors chose to react with resolve.
Within a week, the magazine rose from the ashes like a
phoenix to publish again.
The publication has come to represent persecuted
writers and artists who do not lose their commitment to
free expression despite the possibility of jail, torture and
even death.
In these pages, you will hear from journalists, professors,
human rights activists and everyday people. From these
perspectives, we share a tribute to free expression, without which we would be unable to question institutions,
defend the vulnerable, laugh at ourselves, or cry. And
where would we be without that?
Writers and artists fly far ahead, helping us to understand and interpret our world.
This is for them.
-Sally O’Dowd

7

FAT IA H,
MU HA MM A D
and me

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When I lived in Paris a few years ago, I frequented a
hammam, a public bath. These establishments, dating back to the Roman Empire, were adopted by
the 7th-century Umayyad caliphs that succeeded
Muhammad. The name is derived from hamma,
meaning “to heat” in Turkish and Arabic; in English,
they’re often referred to as Turkish baths.
The hammam was up the street from my apartment
on Rue Oberkampf, in the 11th arrondissement (the
same district as Charlie Hebdo’s offices). The facility had a gym and pool and the men’s and women’s
hammams on the second floor. Our hammam featured
a steam room, dry sauna, communal area for tea and
conversation, a massage room and showers.
I was one of the regulars. After lengthy stays in the
steam room and sauna, we would exfoliate with a
rough glove until the skin turned pink. Sometimes we
would do each other’s backs. Our skin was like butter
afterward, and that was the point.
I was the only American. Everyone else, save for a
British woman who came in occasionally, was French
or of North African descent. The Muslim women knew
each other quite well and would enjoy cups of tea or
pray toward Mecca at the appropriate times.
Women who normally dressed in headscarves or
burkas walked around naked and literally let their hair
down. The hammam was freeing for all of us.

city of Paris. She was quite welcoming despite our
cultural differences. Fatiah wanted to know how I
was acclimating—she knew of my struggle to fit in at
work. She listened. She said France could benefit from
outsiders, that it should welcome them more fully;
Americans, for example, could contribute to the
economy and business life. She became part of my
weekend ritual, and we made for an interesting pair.
One day in the pool, she got quite upset about
cartoons she had seen mocking Muhammad. It was
2011, and Charlie Hebdo was in hot water with Islamic
critics. It had provoked criticism and security warnings
as early as 2006, when the editor published cartoons by
a Danish artist that featured Muhammad and lamented
fundamentalist violence.
As Fatiah expressed her outrage, it was my turn to
listen. It was not my place, literally or figuratively, to
debate the issue.
Nearly four years after leaving Paris, I often think of
Fatiah, of our candid conversations, our shared love
of the steam room, our ability to meet in the middle
despite our completely different walks of life. I wonder
how she is doing. I’ve lost her phone number.
I miss those days at the hammam, where I was the
minority and yet completely welcomed. Where we all
came to feel our best. With a bit of distance, I can see it
was pluralism at its best, too.

I often chatted with Fatiah, an Algerian-French woman who was a devout Muslim and who worked for the

“Women who normally dressed in headscarves or burkas walked
around naked and literally let their hair down. The hammam was
freeing for all of us.”

9

TO AWARD OR NOT
TO AWARd

Satire at the Heart of Free Speech Debate
In November 2013, Charlie Hebdo
Editor-in-Chief Stéphane Charbonnier (Charb) published a cartoon depicting Christiane Taubira, France’s
Justice Minister, who is black, as an
ape. His intention was to raise awareness of the racism prevalent in the
Front National (National Front), the
extreme right-wing political party
led by Marine Le Pen. Charb titled it
“Rassemblement Bleu Raciste” (Racist Blue Union) as a play on the Front
National’s slogan, “Rassemblement
Bleu Marine” (Blue Marine Union).
After the cartoon appeared, some
people accused Charlie Hebdo
of racism. Despite the magazine’s
consistent use of satire to question authority and institutions of
all kinds, some critics take its work
literally, labeling it not only racist
but also Islamaphobic, homophobic and otherwise intolerant of
people’s differences.
French cartoonist and development
economist Emmanuel Letouzé, who
goes by the pen name Manu, says
such accusations couldn’t be further
from the truth. He unconditionally
backs Charlie Hebdo’s use of satire
to support a humanitarian point of
view. “I would not support them if
they were racists,” he said in an interview earlier this summer at his office
on Madison Avenue in New York.
Indeed, Charb was a member of
the non-profit organization The
Movement against Racism and for
Friendship between Peoples. Two
days before his January 7 murder at
the hands of Al Qaeda terrorists, he

10

completed a book titled Letter to the
Islamophobia Swindlers Who Play
Into the Hands of Racists. It was published in April.
“Political commentary gets to the
heart of what the people at Charlie Hebdo were doing,” said Letouzé, who is also the director of the
Data-Pop Alliance, the first think
tank on big data and development,
co-created by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, MIT Media Lab and
Overseas Development Institute.
“They were super-passionate, super-hardcore, and many of their cartoons weren’t primarily meant to be
funny. They were intense. What you
can do in cartoons is often inappropriate in words.”
Those who are not regular readers
of Charlie Hebdo likely don’t understand its work, added Letouzé,
sketching in his notebook throughout the interview. “We live in an age
of data and social media, and content goes wild with little context.”
Shock. Don’t Shoot.
In May, Letouzé was one of several cartoonists who spoke at a New
York forum hosted by human rights
organization PEN American Center, which awarded Charlie Hebdo
a “freedom of expression courage”
award at its literary gala. During
the panel discussion, the group discussed Charb’s ape cartoon as one
example of the magazine’s use of
satire to wake people up to injustice,
racism and other social ills.

“Being shocked is part of democratic debate,” said Charlie Hebdo’s
new top editor, Gérard Biard, upon
receiving the award. “Being shot
is not.”
Letouzé expressed dismay that more
than 200 PEN members opposed an
award given in honor of colleagues
who died while exercising their right
to free speech. Wouldn’t journalists
and writers, of all people, try to understand the magazine’s work before criticizing it?
Despite their PEN membership, the
dissenting group signed a letter
of protest, arguing that the award
crossed a line between “staunchly
supporting expression that violates
the acceptable, and enthusiastically
rewarding such expression.”
For his part, Salman Rushdie took
the debate outside the private gala.
On Facebook he exchanged harsh
words with Francine Prose, one
of the award protestors. “Our fellow artists were murdered for their
ideas, and you won’t stand up for
them,” Rushdie said. “I hope that our
long alliance can survive this. But I
fear some old friendships will break
on this wheel.”
Katy Glenn Bass, PEN America’s
deputy director of Free Expression
Programs, reiterated the organization’s defense of its award in a July
phone interview. When asked about
context, she said it doesn’t matter:
“We defend your right to publish
anything you want, whether people
understand it or not.”

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“They were super-passionate, super-hardcore, and many of their
cartoons weren’t primarily meant to be funny. They were intense.
What you can do in cartoons is often inappropriate in words.”
-Emmanuel Letouzé

In May, Pen American Center awarded Charlie Hebdo its “freedom of expression courage” award and hosted a
discussion about political satire in the wake of the murders at the magazine.
On the panel, from left: Molly Crabapple, Art Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly, and Emmanual Letouzé (Manu).

Satirical humor has long been part of the French literary tradition.
Some 500 years ago, playwrights and entertainers were mocking
their rulers and priests at carnivals where audiences enjoyed moments free of hierarchy and judgment. The masses were always in
on the joke.

13

For every religious prayer and sermon, satirists of the
Middle Ages produced the comic prayer and the silly sermon; for every civic ritual, its topsy-turvy festival
parody; for every vow at the altar, its oath upon a sexual organ; to every king his fool, and to every scholar
his ass. By turning “real life” on its head—removing the
bishop’s miter and crowning the ragamuffin as king—
carnival renewed the community as a creative force
within seemingly immutable structures.
Not amused, Rome and La Sorbonne condemned such
satire as blasphemous. For its part, the French monarchy relied on censorship to keep writers in line between the 16th and 18th centuries, thus making irony
and playful inventiveness increasingly important literary devices.
Fast forward to today, and those devices remain in full
force.

Indeed, we might want to thank French writers—Rabelais, Beaumarchais, Voltaire and many others—for
the satirical humor we in the West enjoy. Think Monty Python, Saturday Night Live and Jon Stewart’s
The Daily Show, none of which would exist if authors
had not started to poke fun at the world around them
centuries ago.
While France’s Charlie Hebdo is the catalyst for this
magazine’s homage to freedom of expression, I want
to focus on Stewart’s particular brand of satire—specifically, how the tradition of community laughter and its
opposition to literalism informs the case of the Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, who recounts his
arrest and torture in his memoir, Then They Came for
Me. The book forms the basis of Rosewater, the 2014
film that marked Stewart’s directing debut.

The French monarchy relied on censorship to keep writers in
line between the 16th and 18th centuries, thus making irony and
playful inventiveness increasingly important literary devices.

I Spy. You Spy.

Before: I am Charlie.

Bahari was arrested for espionage while covering the 2009 Iranian election for Newsweek. He spent almost four months in solitary confinement, where he was subject to brutal interrogation
by the authorities. Bringing the memoir to the big screen was
a personal project for Stewart. The Islamic Republic of Iran had
used footage of Bahari’s interview with Jason Jones on The Daily
Show as evidence against him.
The interview, which took place in Tehran just days before the
elections, was classic Jason Jones shtick. He pretends to be what
he is not—a spy—in order to gain the sympathy of the “real” spy
(Bahari) to coax his secrets out of him. It’s a many-layered tour
de force, and Jones and Bahari can hardly hold back their laughter. Tragically for Bahari, the Iranian authorities took it all literally.
Javadi, Bahari’s interrogator, simply cannot get the joke, failing
to understand that Bahari is a serious journalist having a fun moment with a comedian. He isn’t part of the community of laughter,
which, oddly enough, opens up moments of unexpected comedy
in this grim film.
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After: I am wiretapping Charlie.

15

New Jersey: Capital of the Persian Massage
After months in solitary confinement and brutal interviews, Bahari eventually gains the upper hand over his sexually repressed
captor. For Javadi’s benefit, he grudgingly “confesses” that his
frequent trips to New Jersey were not to visit a friend but in fact
trips to the sex massage parlors to which he has become addicted. Yes—believe it or not—Fort Lee is the notorious world capital
of sex massage, including—you would never guess, but it’s true—
the very special technique of the—amazing coincidence—Persian
massage: three virgins, one man.
It’s very creative bullshit, and exceptionally funny, and the very
point that liberates Bahari spiritually is that Javadi can’t tell it’s all
a joke. (Instead, Javadi wholeheartedly believes his prisoner and
wants to hear about every adventure). It is Bahari’s turn to repeat
a Jason Jones moment, intermingling reality and absurdity in a
truly hilarious way.
Mr. Hillary Clinton
When his guard Seyyeh greets him one day as “Mr. Hillary Clinton,” Bahari understands he has been the subject of international
diplomacy. He knows he’ll get out.
The message Bahari leaves on his cell wall—“You are not alone”—
is a quintessence of carnival speech, turning “alone” in solitary
confinement completely on its head. “You are not alone” is a negative that affirms the positive. It shouts out to the next occupant
of the cell, and the next, that community still exists beyond the
walls, the falsehoods, the fundamentalism. Imagination is the
community’s renewal and living language its strength.

“What was most surprising is that Writers in democratic
societies are self-censoring to a degree that approaches the
level of self-censorship observed in non-democratic societies.”
18

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TO HAUNT YOU
In the days and weeks after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris,
10-year-old Elea shared
her feelings and opinions
in a series of essays.
“Will I be able to publish everything when
I’m older, without the government coming
after me?” Elea asked her mother, Patricia,
head of strategy at a global IT company
based in the south of France.
Patricia replied, “I hope.”
“I know first-hand that journalists are worried
about their ability to do their job,” Patricia
said in a recent telephone interview. “Back
in November, I met with some journalists
from L.A. and when our interview was over,
we talked off-the-record. They said they feel
less free to write about certain topics than
before 9/11.”
Patricia’s reflections are consistent with the
report Global Chilling: The Impact of Mass
Surveillance on Writers, published earlier this year by PEN American Center, part
of PEN International, a global organization
working in over 100 countries to defend
freedom of expression.
“What was most surprising is that writers
in democratic societies are self-censoring
to a degree that approaches the level of
self-censorship observed in non-democratic
societies,” said Katy Glenn Bass, the report’s
author and deputy director of Freedom of
Expression programs at PEN America. “Writers in democratic countries don’t necessarily
believe their governments will respect their
privacy.”
The report’s findings reflect the views of 772
writers and journalists in 50 countries who
responded to online surveys between August 28 and October 15, 2014.

American Writers Curtailing Activities
The 2015 global report builds on an October 2013 survey of U.S. writers. Of those surveyed in the U.S. :

• 85% said they were very or somewhat
worried about government surveillance

• 40% avoided activities on social media,
or seriously considered doing so

• 33% steered clear of certain topics in

personal phone conversations or email
messages, or seriously considered it

• 27% avoided writing or speaking on a

particular topic and refrained from conducting internet searches or visiting
websites on topics that may be deemed
controversial, or seriously considered it

“The high level of concern among U.S. writers mirrors that of writers living in the other
four countries that make up the ‘Five Eyes’
surveillance alliance (Australia, Canada,
New Zealand, and the United Kingdom),
84% of whom are very or somewhat worried
about government surveillance,” the global
report states. “Writers are not outliers when
it comes to their level of concern about government surveillance.”
The report cites a Pew Research Center survey in which 80% of Americans agree that
U.S. society should be worried about the
government’s monitoring of phone calls and
internet communications.
“There is a lot that we don’t know about the
NSA,” said Bass, referring to the U.S. National Security Agency, which collects massive
amounts of emails and millions of phone records per day for anti-terrorism purposes. “I
just assume they are monitoring me.”
She is also concerned about surveillance
conducted by other governments, in particular when corresponding with Chinese
dissidents because they could be put at risk
for talking with her. “One Chinese writer is
on his 14th social media account because
the Chinese government keeps shutting his
down,” she said.

19

Free, Not Free: That Is the Question
The global report sheds light on writers’ behavior in a
post-9/11 world and how the U.S. government’s reputation as the defender of the free world is being damaged.
“The levels of self-censorship reported by writers in liberal democracies are astonishing, and demonstrate that
mass surveillance programs conducted by democracies
are chilling freedom of expression among writers,” the
report stated. “Awareness of mass surveillance in democratic societies is prompting many writers to behave similarly to those living in countries with histories of widespread state surveillance, indicating that these writers
are not confident that their governments will not abuse
the information collected under these surveillance programs.”
In dissecting trends for the global report, PEN used a
global map published by Freedom House, which categorizes countries as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free.
The findings are startling.
For example:

• 34% of writers in Free countries, 44% of writers in

Partly Free countries and 61% of writers in Not Free
countries have avoided writing or speaking on a particular topic, or have considered doing so, due to fear
of government surveillance

• When it comes to internet activity, behavior patterns

are the same in Free and Not Free countries – 26% of
writers in both types of countries have refrained from
conducting internet searches or visiting websites on
topics that may be deemed controversial, or have
considered doing so

Decline of the Western Value System
The survey methodology itself reflects the high level of concern that writers and PEN representatives have about government surveillance. The survey was programmed such that
respondents’ IP addresses were not stored and that data
would be encrypted. PEN collected data in the aggregate to
protect individuals’ anonymity.
Despite the extensive measures, some respondents fear
their opinions might come back to haunt them.
“It is clear to me from the information I have given you that
my responses to the questionnaire, and presumably also before this statement, can be traced back to me,” one survey
respondent wrote anonymously. “It may be that this information will be hacked by security agencies. Surely anyone
who thinks thoughts like these will be in danger—if not today,
then (because this is a process) possibly tomorrow.”

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden prompted yet another respondent’s concerns. “I believe that most U.K. citizens
are now regularly under levels of surveillance that make the
Stasi seem amateurish,” she said. “I may be paranoid, but I
believe not.”
While the West engages in a global war with ISIS, some writers actually question whether “Western” values still exist at
all, and whether anyone can ever be free now that surveillance has become so digital and widespread.
Said one respondent: “The unlawful secret intelligence [activity] of the U.S. and its closest allies strengthens and encourages totalitarian states and despots through its blatant
harm to human and citizen’s rights. We are becoming hostages of the self-destruction of the ‘western’ value system.”

Another respondent submitted, “Believe it or not, completing this survey made me apprehensive. How sad, living in a
democratic country. How did we come to this!”
21

Y’S
Pierre, a French currency trader living in a suburb of New York City
with his wife and two sons, attended Marcelin Berthelot and grew up
reading comic books by Charlie
Hebdo editors Jean Cabut, whose
pen name was Cabu, and Georges
Wolinski.

He feels particular pain over what
happened and a true sense of nostalgia. “They were legends, as famous as Jon Stewart,” he said during
a recent interview in a bustling café
across from Grand Central Terminal.
“I grew up with them.”
Pierre was an avid reader of Cabu’s
“Legrand Duduche,” a comic strip
that debuted in 1963 featuring a
blond and lanky schoolboy wearing
glasses — one who closely resembled Cabu. In the 1970s, “Legrand
DuDuche” became an anti-authority
and antimilitaristic character, and he
evolved over the years into a pacifist
and ecologist.

Those who murdered the Charlie Hebdo journalists and, shortly
thereafter, shoppers at a kosher supermarket attacked the very heart
of French society, said Pierre. “They
attacked what we stand for and how
we express ourselves. They attacked
the way the French have designed
to live together in religion.”
He is not surprised by the death
threats against the young journalist
because tensions in French society
run high.
While the lycée is in an affluent area,
in the same region as the Château
de Grosbois, Muslim ghettos are
not far away. These areas are called
zones d’education prioritaires, or priority education zones, and were created in 1981 to address the needs
of disadvantaged and immigrant
students — to “give more to those
who have less.” The so-called ZEPs
have proved a failure, as French Education Minister Vincent Peillon has
said. Last year the French govern-

ment enacted a series of reforms in
an attempt to stem the “ghettoization,” according to L’Express.
“The socioeconomic problems are
really explosive,” Pierre said. “The
norm for teenagers in the ghettos
is to hate the West. They don’t trust
traditional media, which drives them
to social media, where they read
ISIS propaganda.”
Pierre would agree with Minister
Peillon that the state has failed to
craft policies that could help integrate Muslims into mainstream
French society. Referring to the
ZEPs, he said, “They don’t teach civics properly. Many Muslim students
are not given the chance to understand democracy.”
As for the student, he was under
police protection as of late May. A
more recent update could not be
found.

23

A British
Citizen
Embraces
French

LAĂ?CITĂ&#x2030;
24

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25

Adults and children alike on both sides of the
Atlantic have tried to make sense of the murders at Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris, among other related attacks
in January. In many instances, the violence is
reinforcing the notion that love can overcome
hate, that hope comes from community.
For Trudi Harris Dubon, the terrorist events
led to a renewed sense of solidarity with the
French, heightening her desire to become a
French citizen in full support of the country’s
values. A British woman who has lived in Toulouse for 10 years with her husband, also British, and their two daughters, Trudi had been
planning to become a citizen for some time.
Bureaucracy kept her from doing so, but the
attacks sealed the deal.
A communications professional who splits
her time between Toulouse and Paris, Trudi’s
first task on the morning of the January 7 attacks at Charlie Hebdo was to make sure Paris employees at her company were safe and
decide if a corporate communiqué would be
necessary. “My next thought,” she recalls, “was
that this felt like a particularly cruel and calculated attack on France, hitting at the heart of
something that is held particularly dear to the
French: freedom of speech and the broader
notion of liberté, égalité, fraternité.”
Solidarity with the French manifested itself
on a deeply personal level. “The day of the
attacks,” says Trudi, “I felt a huge pride in the
French nation for its commitment to laïcité
[separation of church and state]. I wanted to
be part of that nation, not just a long-term visitor. I wanted to be French.”
Trudi’s French citizenship means her girls will
have it as well. They will be able to honor
France’s value system as true citizens. “They
see themselves as part French, part British not as Brits living in France. I knew that if I
took French citizenship, my children would
26

be able to automatically take it too, instead
of having to wait several years. I wanted them
to be able to say ‘I’m French’ when it suited
them. Few kids want to be different from everyone else in their milieu.”
So what does it take for a Brit to become a
French citizen?
Can you retain your British citizenship?
T: Most definitely. For all the above, I would
not have decided to take French citizenship if
it meant losing my British citizenship.
What goes into obtaining French citizenship?
T: The rules changed in 2013 so that now, the
first thing you have to prove is a decent level of spoken French and that you understand
enough to get by in society using the local
language. I fully support this approach to integration.
What are the steps for demonstrating language skills?
T: This means an exam, in my case at the Alliance Française [an educational and cultural arm of the French government]. I found
the exam to be far harder than I would have
thought. They really do want a decent level to
have been reached.
France is famous for its bureaucracy…
Assuming you pass the exam, you have to wait
until an appointment window opens online so
you can arrange an interview at your regional government office. These online windows
open every three months, and I missed the
first opening by five minutes — that’s to say,
when I logged on five minutes after the appointments went live, all of them had already
been taken for the next 12 months. I think we
can assume that my fears about bureaucracy
were not misplaced — this will be a long and
arduous process!

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“I wanted to be part of that nation, not just a
long-term visitor. I wanted to be French.”
-Trudi Harris Dubon

What will French citizenship mean to you? Do
you feel “different”?
T: I do feel different. I feel very proud of my imminent bi-nationality. It means I feel at home in two
countries, and relate to two (very different) cultures. I think this gives me an edge in business, but
also an edge from a purely personal point of view.
The lessons I have learned in France have helped
me become a more rounded individual.
Any funny thoughts from a Brit about being
French, given the historical differences?
T: Many many, but the thing that strikes me the
most over and over is France’s elevation of ambiguity to an art form. The more ambiguous one can
be in business, or even in general life, the better.
Of course, we Anglo Saxons simply can’t tolerate
it — for us, ambiguity is torturous, particularly in
business. Every time I hear a French person start
their response to me, following a question about
what can or can’t be done, with a priori… [“in principle”] or normalement… [“in theory”], I simultaneously laugh, and a little bit of me dies! I just want
to know: yes or no.

Trudi Harris Dubon

27

France’s Charb
Amendment

Tax Breaks to Protect Press Freedoms
Want to start a magazine?
France might be your best bet, for the government
recently passed a law in support of freedom of expression. Prior to his death in the attack on Charlie Hebdo,
the magazine’s editor, Stéphane Charbonnier (“Charb”),
had been pushing for a law to ensure the survival of
cash-strapped news organizations. Charlie Hebdo itself
was in dire financial straits (after the attacks, however,
thousands of euros started pouring in).
Charb’s commitment lives on as the Charb Amendment, which the French parliament signed in May
to spur private sector investment in the media. The
law allows individuals who donate up to €1,000 to
news organizations to deduct half their contribution
from their taxable income. The financial incentives

28

apply to print publications and websites that cover
general news or politics with a staff of no more than
50 people. The French government estimates there are
some 300 dailies and weeklies around the country that
stand to benefit.
The law pays homage to victims of the attack on Charlie
Hebdo, demonstrates the state’s commitment to a free
and independent press, and modernizes France’s media industry through private financing. It also aims to
support media startups that often fail soon after launch
due to insufficient funds.
Suffice it to say that the Charlie Hebdo team is thrilled.
A recent article on the amendment closed with, “And
now, as Charb would say, let’s get to work, comrades.”

Renaud Luzier’s birthday will forever be associated with
a murderous attack on free speech. Turning 43 on January 7, 2015, he showed up late for work and walked
into carnage.

The overbearing black tells a story of terror and
isolation under police protection. Any sound, any
shadow, makes him cower like a mouse hiding behind
a radiator.

The cartoonist and writer, who goes by the name Luz,
has been under police protection, as are other Charlie
Hebdo journalists since the attack at the magazine.

Despite his vow to never draw Muhammad again,
he does get there, although not literally. In the first
scene of “Tache” (Mark), Luz is frustrated over his
inability to depict money-laundering by the right-wing
Front National party. A Muslim cleric appears, alleging that Luz’s black spot is Muhammad. Performing a
Rorschach test of sorts — Is that name Jewish? Should we
Wikipedia it? — they debate whether the spot is a butterfly, a tree, a cat or the cleric’s mother’s privates. The
cleric runs away, deciding it is Muhammad and that he
must avenge him.

Luz struggled with drawing for some time after the
attacks, but his passion returned. The result is the
beautifully illustrated Catharsis, published in May
by Futuropolis.
His story is one of grizzly memories, fear and sadness, and the salvation he finds through his wife,
Camille Emmanuelle.
The chapter “Rouge à Lèvres” (Lipstick) includes a series of three drawings and a comic strip. Luz walks up
the bloody stairs of Charlie Hebdo’s offices at 10, Rue
Nicolas-Appert, sees nothing but blood and then is
thrown into the police investigation and media circus
like someone in a mosh pit. Blood and blue clothing,
perhaps his friends, hover in the sky. Camille comes to
comfort him. Back at home in bed, he asks if she had
worn lipstick to the scene and she recalls that she had
taken 30 seconds to put on makeup without thinking
about it. A red color block represents a sick twist of hell
on earth and everyday routine.
In “Eros et Thanatos”, the gods of love and demons
fight it out. Here Luz depicts the intimacy he shares with
Camille, the tears they cry while making love, grace.
“Le Loup-garou” (Werewolf) is a series of heavy sketches and dark vertical lines pouring down like a storm.

32

Luz’s nightmare is personified by a character emerging
from his belly whom he calls Ginette. She says:
“When I enter your head, I am fear, paranoia, the
shadow that follows you, but it isn’t yours.
“When I go down to the ends of your fingers and
prevent you from drawing, I am at the same time your
future anguish and the anguish of a blank page…
“Often I will invade you entirely, I will be the
unbearable helium of your anger and the fatty lump of
your confusion of being a survivor.”
Yet Ginette’s threats are dulled by Luz’s promise to live
life as an artist for those who no longer can.
“One day drawing left me,” he writes on the book’s
back cover. “The same day as a handful of dear friends.
The only difference is that it came back.”

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33

Catharsis by Luz, ÂŠ Futuropolis, Paris, 2015

SENDING A
MESSAGE
’

One Artist s Way

“WHEN WILL IT END (A SONG FOR CHANGE)”
FEATURING YUNI RAIN, BY CHAZ LANGLEY

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT
“HERE WITH YOU”
BY CHAZ LANGLEY

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT
“SONG OF SORROW”
BY CHAZ LANGLEY

34

Share this magazine and your views: #creativityisrisky #freespeech

A MESSAGE PREPARED FROM
THE HEART REACHES HEARTS
We’ve covered a lot of ground in Creativity Is Risky.
The Charlie Hebdo tragedy only punctuates, tragically, what the world has long been
grappling with when it comes to freedom of expression. On these pages this has shown
up in small ways (in a steam room) and in big ways (human rights organizations spelling
out threats to free speech). Meanwhile, everyday people and artists are picking up the
mantle of Charlie Hebdo and moving forward.
And musicians are, too.
Enter New York-based singer-songwriter Chaz Langley.
For our last piece we welcome you to enjoy his music, and share it, of course. When taken
together, these three songs weave a tale of suffering, healing and humanity—an overarching theme of the e-zine.
We have chosen “When Will It End? (A Song for Change),” which Chaz wrote in response
to police shootings of unarmed black men in America. It also serves as a universal call for
peace and love. “Song of Sorrow” takes our metaphor of the phoenix to a toe-tapping
note with a story of a wounded bird that wants to fly and sing again—just as Luz regained
his strength to draw and publish Catharsis (see pages 30-33). Lastly, we’ve chosen “Here
with You,” thinking this might be a song that Luz and his wife, Camille, would enjoy.

MEET CHAZ LANGLEY
What do you consider the artist’s role in today’s fractured society?
C: Blacks, gays, women, Jews, artists—we have all been persecuted over thousands of
years. It would be nice to say these problems were past us, and clearly they are not. An
artist is there to provide some solace and remind us that we are all together in this thing
called the human condition.
How did “Where Will It End?” come to you?
C: I locked myself away. I wondered what instruments would suit my mood and the melody, and the lyrics came naturally.

As discussed in other parts of the magazine, journalists and political cartoonists
are focused on the news, the facts, and their words and pictures evolve from there.
That’s not your starting place.
C: Not everyone is political. I direct my focus to the everyday person who doesn’t read
the paper or watch the news, because it’s depressing. If I watched the news for inspiration, I wouldn’t be much of an artist.
You’re starting from a soulful place.
C: Everyone uses music as an elixir to cure what ails them. The level of violence in our
country and around the world is overwhelming and incomprehensible. The fact that
church and murder fit into the same sentence, or cartoons and murder, is literally insane.
A four-minute song helps to break it down into something we can feel as human beings.
What guides your creative process?
C: A mentor of mine years ago taught me this: ”A message prepared in the mind reaches
minds. … A message prepared from the heart reaches hearts. … And a message prepared from a life reaches lives.” I use these words to live by in every song I write.
35

It’s easy to be outraged by senseless slaughter.
The attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in January, and
the murder of 11 staffers there, was brutal and shocking and heartbreaking, and it rallied writers and artists
around the world to the cause of free expression.
The moment dominated the news, inspired eloquent
commentary, moving tributes to the victims and yes,
some fierce debate about the magazine’s approach to
religious satire. (After all, being able to argue passionately about Charlie Hebdo without killing each other is
the whole point, right?)
To recall Oscar Wilde: “I may not agree with you, but
I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of
yourself.”

The erosion of our liberty can be found in the pages
of the Patriot Act, that hasty and ill-conceived piece of
legislation that none of us read, passed 45 days after
the 9/11 attacks with little regard to its impact on what
we claim as our founding principles.
Traumatized by the attacks, Americans quickly gave
up a measure of their freedom with a hearty and resounding yes. If you happened to be one of the few
who spoke against that regrettably named legislation,
you were somehow, well, unpatriotic.
We’re still feeling the effects of the Patriot Act today,
most recently in the revelations that AT&T (my own cell
phone company) was a willing and enthusiastic partner in helping the government eavesdrop on its own
citizens.

And then the story fell off the front page, the
homepage and the Twitter feed, at least in the general
consciousness. We moved on to other tragedies, real
and imagined: a horrific beheading in the Middle East,
the trials of Caitlyn Jenner, Donald Trump’s hair and his
views on immigration (equally frightening).

We saw it in the rush to judgment about Edward
Snowden, branded immediately by otherwise
clear-thinking people as a traitor to the United States,
long before anyone fully understood what he had
found and decided, quite courageously, to reveal.

And that’s the problem. It’s not that we stopped caring
about the tragedy. There’s no dearth of news about the
struggles of people to speak their minds freely or to
assemble without fear. There is only a shortage of
attention span. And that fact alone should be our
greatest cause for alarm.

A few years after 9/11, my wife and I were having dinner with a couple we’ve known for many years, and the
conversation naturally turned to current events. I was
no fan of George W. Bush and believed, as I still do,
that he took us into war on an intentional lie. And when
I said so, my wife’s best friend looked at me, with venom in her eyes, and accused me of “not supporting our
troops.”

For even as we lift our voices in unison to condemn the
senseless violence in Paris, it’s what we do the rest of
the time—when the news isn’t breaking—that may offer
our best defense of the freedoms we hold so dear.
Attacks on free expression cannot be measured by
headline-grabbing acts of terror alone. They happen
every day, in little ways, more death by a thousand cuts
than all-out assault. No, it’s even more insidious than
that; we suffer most when we allow our freedoms to
slip away without notice, or when we willingly comply
by remaining silent.

36

What?
Free speech shouldn’t be put on a pedestal to be admired as one of those things we used to do, a bit of
nostalgia now out of fashion, like writing thank you
notes or balancing your checkbook.
Our greatest concern should be the one we don’t even
recognize in ourselves: the tendency toward self-censorship. We limit free speech the most when we are the
ones doing the repressing, in our own words and actions, or lack of them.

Share this magazine and your views: #creativityisrisky #freespeech

The stories and essays in this publication remind us of
that tragic day in Paris. But they should also steel our
resolve and remind us of our own reluctance to speak
out, to make a fuss, to argue against the conventional wisdom we know to be wrong, realizing that we will
stand apart and be made to feel awkward by our lack of
political correctness.

“My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right
to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss
my ass.”
—Jim Ylisela
Chicago

Better to follow the dictates of the late Christopher
Hitchens, a brilliant writer whose opinions I found as often outrageous and maddening as they were brilliant
and inspiring:

37

GET INVOLVED | STAY UP TO DATE
People around the world are writing and commenting on free speech issues related to government surveillance, persecution of writers, and everyday threats to this fundamental human right.
Where do you see free speech celebrated or curtailed?
Contribute to the #freespeech movement by sharing your thoughts.
A few ways you can help:

• Access and share the multimedia version of this magazine at sallyodowd.com.
• Join the global Twitter discussion by checking out @sallyodowd and other accounts using the
#freespeech hashtag.

• Alert your Facebook friends. Find the magazine at Sally On Media.
• Use other platforms of your choice, such as Google +, LinkedIn and Medium, where Sally O’Dowd is also posting.
• Enjoy and share the music video at youtube.com/user/sallyonmedia.
• Learn more about free speech issues via PEN American Center (or other country affiliates), Freedom House and
Reporters Without Borders.

Thank you for reading and for your support!

CREDITS
Creativity Is Risky: Free Speech in a Charlie Hebdo World
is published, edited and written by Sally O’Dowd.
Sally would like to send a huge merci (thank you) to the talented people who shared
so many wonderful ideas and unrelenting humanity to make this dream a reality.
The New York Team:
Art director and photographer: Michelle Zapata, www.mzapataphoto.com
E-magazine producer and graphic designer: Jon Porcasi, www.jondandy.com
Copy editor: Marian Berelowitz
Special Contributors:
Professor Renée Kingcaid,
Professor of French, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind.
James Ylisela Jr.,
Investigative journalist and author of
Who Killed the Candy Lady?:
Unwrapping the Unsolved Murder of Helen Brach
CONTACT
E-magazine: sallyodowd.com
sally@sallyonmedia.net
+1.917.477.9566